“In the ‘Voyage to Laputa,’ there is a description of a machine for evolving science automatically. ‘By this contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with little bodily labor, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.’ The intention is to ridicule the Organon of Aristotle and the Organon of Bacon, by showing the absurdity of supposing that any ‘instrument’ can do the work of the mind. Yet the logical machines of Jevons and Marquand are mills into which the premises are fed and which turn out the conclusions by the revolution of a crank. The numerous mathematical engines that have been found practically useful, from Webb’s adder up to Babbage’s analytical engine (which was designed though never constructed), are also machines that perform reasoning of no simple kind. Precisely how much of the business of thinking a machine could possibly be made to perform, and what part of it must be left for the living mind, is a question not without conceivable practical importance; the study of it can at any rate not fail to throw needed light on the nature of the reasoning process. Though the instruments of Jevons and Marquand were designed chiefly to illustrate more elementary points, their utility lies mainly, as it seems to me, in the evidence they afford concerning this problem.”

– Charles S. Peirce. “Logical Machines,” in Writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. N. Houser (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) 6:65.